Ofili’s 1996 painting stirred controversy in 1999 when it was on display at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City as part of the touring Sensation exhibition. The brouhaha centered over Ofili’s use of elephant dung and pornographic images, which seemed sacrilegious to some.
The dung, dried and varnished, is incorporated into Mary’s right breast, and two other lumps as floor supports with map pins arranged to write out “Virgin” on one and “Mary” on the other. The putti (secular versions of cherubs, sometimes nude and winged) are formed by the photographs of female genitalia and butts.

Ofili is clearly toying with his audience’s perceptions by blending the sacred (the Virgin Mary as the subject) and the profane (shit and porn!). His use of dung isn’t arbitrary and senseless though. Born in Britain to Nigerian parents, Ofili connects to his roots by integrating elephant dung, which has cultural and even sacred connotations, into his artwork. Dung in African art may be used as any other artistic material, but the crotch cut-outs for putti is just ironic.

Then-NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani denounced the work, calling it “sick stuff,” and began proceeding to pull city funding from the museum to stop the exhibit. The funny thing is that the mayor had not seen the painting himself or knew that the exhibition was not funded by the city. While public reaction supported the painting and the exhibition, regardless of shock value, The Holy Virgin Mary suffered two attacks, one in which white paint was smeared over the work. No permanent damage was done; the painting was cleaned of the white paint within the hour of the attack. The second attack was outside the museum, when another artist threw horse manure at the Brooklyn Museum.

The museum guards reportedly said, “It’s not the Virgin Mary. It’s a painting.” Looking at the diverse reactions of the public, it seems the medium of the painting and not the subject is the message.

In his 1857 Realist painting, The Gleaners (Des glaneuses), Jean-François Millet portrays three peasant women picking up any leftover pieces of wheat after a harvest. The gleaners were the lowest of the low in French society, and the painting was received with criticism and suspicion from the middle and especially upper classes for Millet’s dignified if not sympathetic portrayal of the lower class.

We never see the faces of the women; they are too concerned to pay attention to us spectators. They must glean or go hungry. Their arched backs keep them close to the earth, but never rising high enough to meet the horizon and enjoy the bounty of the wheat harvest piled behind them. Millet paints them lest we forget one’s humble status.

On the lighter side of things, I saw an exhibit on furniture art from the early to mid 1900s a few years back. If I recall correctly, it was in a smaller gallery room at the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, but coincidentally, I can’t find any information about the display on the museum’s website.

What I remember best was the conceptual office furniture art. It wasn’t mind-blowing or out there. Instead, my first impressions after scanning the room were that the furniture looked passé, mundane, or commonplace. Only when I read the art tags did I realize why.

Art Deco and Bauhaus furniture art of the 1920s and 30s, which at one point was in vogue, has been so successful as design concepts that we continue to see the style today. What might have been high art is now a shared experience of the seemingly ordinary.

The tubular chrome and aluminum material, which is a sturdy and cheap material persists today. The cantilevered seat (in which there are no back legs and the seat seems to hang in the air) is still around!

These styles influence functional and modern furniture later on…Art and historical tradition are right under our noses. These should look familiar:

The series of examples of “The Unseen” begins with a retrospective to an exhibition from 2012 in London’s Hayward Gallery titled “Invisible: Art about the Unseen 1957-2012.” The Guardian has an article about the exhibit, and Al Jazeera gives video introduction.

Sight is very much privileged in the arts. We appreciate art with the physical presence of something, an object we regard as art. Hayward’s 2012 show, Invisible compelled its audience to consider art in the absence of something, without a physical object to experience. The gallery showcased 26 artists who have played with the idea of the invisible in their work, including Gianni Motti’s 1989 Magic Ink invisible ink drawings, a platform where Andy Warhol once stood, Robert Barry’s photographs of noble gases mixing into the atmosphere. Jeppe Hein’s Invisible Labyrinth, 2005 is a room with invisible walls and infrared markers, where visitors donning headsets would hear a buzz when encountering a wall.

Gianni Motti’s Magic Ink drawings

Absurdity is a reasonable response to these works, but consider a more somber piece by Teresa Margolles, En el aire (In the air), 2003. Her tribute to Mexico City murder victims is a room cooled by a humidifier using the same water used to wash their bodies in the city morgue.

Musicians will quickly compare John Cage’s 4’33” as an acoustic analog to the art of the unseen. However, as Cage would agree, even the absence of something exudes its presence. A space of nothingness is filled with the audience’s markings of what is nothing and what is something; it is filled with expectations for something (and perhaps disappointment), to which our imaginations and thoughts fill what seems to be a physical void. Listen carefully to David Tutor’s performance; Cage’s narration at the beginning gives a quick introduction.

Folding Table extends the unseen, the invisible, the hidden, the overlooked, or unnoticed to all aspects and modes of interpretation.

Folding Table is announcing a call for artwork for the new community art exhibition titled “The Unseen.” What do we see? What don’t we see?

We take for granted for what appears to be there, or not…this can happen from an aesthetic, social, or historical perspective. Artists, artwork, the message of artwork, and even the intended audience may often be hidden or out of view.

“The Unseen” art show will bring to light ‘unseen’ works of art; unappreciated, forgotten, or overlooked art, or artists underrepresented in any way.

We anticipate a multi-sensory and interactive exhibition experience. Artists are encouraged to submit existing or proposed artwork that combine not only the visual, but also performance, aural, tactile, and even olfactory.

Deadline for proposals is June 30, 2014. Selection of artwork will be notified via email by July 1, 2014.

This project is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Economic Development Department/Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com. Special thanks also goes to Austin Creative Alliance.